Letting KIDS be KIDS!

Where there’s a dusty patch of dirt in Zambia, a clearing in the middle of a bamboo forest in SE Asia, or a derelict parking lot in the São Paulo favelas, there will be kids with a football. Sweaty kids with big smiles and big aspirations. Ragged all-stars in third-hand Arsenal jerseys.

For a moment, for 90 glorious minutes, their circumstances disappear and they are absorbed in their own World Cup Final. Then the sun sets, and they return to the mean streets, the home with the abusive or absent father, or to the supper that cannot possibly fill their stomachs.

Such is the power of sport. The uniting power of teamwork and cooperation. Striving toward a common goal and learning in a powerful way what it means to be noble and selfless. The joy of friendship, feeling the thrill of “that” incredible goal, the simple beauty of legs that can run, and the pleasure that comes from feeling the rush of wind through their hair.

We want to help kids play their World Cup Final. But they can’t do it if the water they drink is literally killing them. They can’t do it if their food, or lack of, can’t possibly fuel their legs and arms. They can’t do it if survival takes up all their time, and robs them of just being a kid.

We want kids to be kids. We want them to run and jump and dance and play. They are young for such a very short time and they deserve that moment, those 90 minutes, to build, to band, to enjoy, and even to forget.

We are trying to do just that. Through water purification systems and creating those “patches of dirt” we are trying to do just that. Every kid deserves a chance, and through sport, however humble it might be, they get that chance. Would you consider helping? Your partnership means everything to us. But more importantly, it means everything to kids who deserve to be just kids.